Cheating for the Chicken Man Page 17

  Early the next morning, Uncle Ray came downstairs in his bathrobe, his arm in a sling, and sat in the living room armchair while Kate finished folding the sheets she had slept on.

  “I know you’ve got to do the culling this morning,” he said. “And I know it’s going to be hard for you, Kate. Try not to think about it too much. Pretend you’re a robot. That’s what I do.”

  Kate sat with the gathered blanket on her lap and looked at her uncle. It had never occurred to her that the culling had bothered him, too. Uncle Ray reached over and touched her knee. “You need to do it for your family, Kate. You’ve got to help out for a while, now that J.T.’s down and I’m laid up.”

  She nodded. “I understand,” she said. “Don’t worry, Uncle Ray.”

  “That’s the girl.”

  After Aunt Helen dropped the two girls off at the house, Kate busied herself with chores and continued putting it off as long as she could. She fixed a lunch for Kerry and helped her pick out clothes for school. She combed out and braided Kerry’s long hair. She fed the dog and the cat, and walked her little sister down the driveway to wait for the bus.

  “It’s going to be a nice day,” Kate said as she took in a big breath of fresh morning air. She hoped to draw in some strength, too, as she surveyed the blue sky and the bright sun rising in the east beyond wide, harvested cornfields full of feasting geese. “If you want, Kerry, after school we’ll carve those pumpkins.”

  “Yay!” Kerry approved. “And Grandma’s coming home with Mommy! They’re going to make an apple pie! Grandma said I could help. But we’ll do the pumpkins first, okay?”

  “You got it,” said Kate.

  Kerry’s agenda for the day was far simpler. Kate envied her innocence.

  The bus appeared, its brakes wheezing, and rumbled to a stop in front of them. “Have fun at school!” Kate told her sister. She smiled and blew a kiss when Kerry waved back through the window.

  As the bus pulled away, a dark, sinking feeling took hold again. Kate would be missing school again because of the chore that lay ahead. And there was no more putting off what needed to be done.

  *

  By two o’clock, it was all over. The culling, the visit from the company inspector, everything. When Kate’s mother had called just after one P.M. with the good news that J.T. was awake and doing well and that Grandma had arrived at the hospital, too, Kate was able to offer her own positive report on the farm.

  But she was struggling mightily with what she had done.

  After hanging up the phone, Kate retreated to her bedroom and picked up her journal. There was an hour before Kerry came home. Maybe writing would help:

  I did a terrible job with the culling today. Guess I’m not very good at playing God, deciding who lives and who dies. When I walked into the first chicken house with the flashlight in one hand and the bucket in the other, I was already struggling. There was a dim light over the feeders, so that’s where I started. The chicks were only two weeks old, still fuzzy and starting to get white feathers. The first one, which I chose because it was smaller than the others, seemed almost glad to be picked up.

  I held that little chick in my hands, then I put my thumbs behind its head. The term “cervical dislocation” stood up in my mind like a billboard. “Instant death,” Dad said. “They don’t know what’s coming.” But I remembered what I’d seen.

  “I’m so sorry,” I told that little chick. Then I squeezed my eyes shut, so I couldn’t witness what I had to do.

  Only I couldn’t do it.

  I could not do it.

  I hung my head and sat down in the middle of all those chicks with that little one in my hands, and I cried while chicks hopped up on my legs and all over my arms. I didn’t care that I was sitting in chicken manure. I let the little chick go, then I put my head in my hands and cried. I thought if I cried hard enough, I could shut the whole thing out.

  But I couldn’t shut it out. I was stuck.

  What happened next is I got scared. Scared of what my mother would say and how she’d react. Scared of what the company people would do when they came. Scared of how disappointed J.T. and Uncle Ray and everyone else would be in me. The fear made me brave. I stood up and collected all the smaller chicks, the ones with broken legs, the ones that looked off, and I put them in the bucket. I had twenty of them in there, climbing over each other and scratching the sides to get out. I thought that if I took them to the outside water spigot I could turn the water on them fast and they’d drown really quick. Somehow, that seemed better than using my bare hands.

  I put a few more chicks in the bucket. I had twenty-three. I had to keep count and write the number down. I carried them outside to the water spigot and turned on the water. I lifted the bucket—but I didn’t put it under the spigot right away. I held it with the water spurting out, some of it getting my shoes wet and spraying mud all over my legs. The bucket grew heavy. Finally, I turned the water off, because I had an even better idea.

  Back inside the chicken house, I had seen this cardboard box. Gently, I dumped the chicks into the box. I gathered more chicks, too, until I had thirty. I folded the top of the box down over them—then I carried the box across the field to the chicken coop next door.

  When I let the chicks loose, the three older birds didn’t move or even seem interested. Weird, but those chickens never have acted normal. Some of the chicks tried to follow me out the door, but I shooed them back. While I was there, I found my journal and the pen outside the coop where I’d dropped them yesterday when I ran to help J.T. I put those things in the empty box and returned to cull the other house. So now I have another secret. Plus, I’ll have to keep them alive.

  Kate set down her pen and closed up the journal, frustrated that writing didn’t bring the closure, or comfort, she was seeking. She pushed the notebook deep inside her backpack and glanced at the clock. It was close to three P.M. She needed to hurry. After pulling her sneakers on, she set off down the driveway to meet Kerry’s bus.

  ~23~

  A THEFT

  Kate squinted as she peered out the living room window. Was she seeing right? Was that Jess riding a bicycle up the driveway? Jess lived five miles away. They didn’t ride bikes back and forth because of the highway. But it was Jess. Did her mother know she’d ridden over?

  “Hey! I tried to call you last night!” Jess said, hopping off her bike as Kate walked out to greet her.

  “How come you’re not at school? At field hockey?” Kate asked.

  “Practice got canceled. Coach had to do something.”

  Jess set the bike down on its side, and the two girls embraced. Jess’s face was beaded with sweat, and her cheeks were bright pink.

  “You never answered my texts,” Jess said.

  “Sorry. My phone died,” Kate told her. “There was too much going on.”

  “Gosh, I know. How are you? How’s J.T.? All we know is he won’t lose the leg.”

  “He’ll be okay,” Kate said. “He lost some muscle tissue, and he has about a million stitches, plus some sort of a metal rod and a bunch of plates holding things together. It’ll be a long recovery. The doctor said he’d be in a wheelchair for a while, then on crutches, and he’ll have to do a lot of physical therapy.”

  Jess grimaced and put a hand to her mouth. “Poor J.T.,” she sympathized. “And you, Kate. I mean I can’t imagine how awful that was, trying to stop the bleeding. I could not have done what you did.”

  “Yeah, you probably could have,” Kate countered gently.

  “No way,” Jess said.

  The two girls walked toward the front porch. “You’d be surprised what you can do when you have to,” Kate said. “There’s no test for it, you know. There’s no way you can find out what you can really do until you’re in it.”

  “That would make a great quote,” Jess said. “Finding the strength you didn’t know you had
.”

  “You should use it!”

  Jess shook her head as the two girls sat down on the porch steps. “I’m not doing the quote thing anymore.”

  “Why not?”

  “Not worth it,” Jess said. “Everybody was making fun of me.”

  “That’s a mistake, Jess. Your quotes were good. You shouldn’t let Olivia and the others change your mind. You’ve got to be true to yourself.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s hard to be true to yourself when people are making fun of you.”

  She’d have to agree, Kate thought, thinking of how hard it was for J.T. to get his life going with all the bullying.

  “Nice pumpkins!” Jess said, spotting the two carved pumpkins on the top step behind them. “But what’s that?” she asked, pointing to the stepladder set up nearby, each rung holding a reclining doll.

  “That’s the doll hospital,” Kate explained. “It’s a high-rise building, like the one J.T.’s in.”

  “Cute,” Jess said. “And just so you know,” she said after a while, “some of us are going to ask Coach Dietrich if you can come back on the team.”

  “No. Don’t,” Kate said. “I didn’t show up for the game before J.T.’s accident even happened, so there’s no excuse. I already had an e-mail from the coach telling me I was off the team.”

  Jess looked disappointed.

  “Hey! Did I see you had green wires in your braces?” Kate asked, trying to lift the mood again.

  Jess gave her a big, toothy grin. “You like ’em?”

  Kate wrinkled her nose. “Actually, it looks like mold. It looks like you have moldy teeth.”

  Jess slapped her playfully. “Dummy. I have yellow on the bottom, see?” She showed her. “Green and gold for school. For the field hockey tournament!”

  Kate’s smile faded. It was an instant reminder that Kate was no longer on the team. Emotions were ricocheting back and forth.

  “Hey,” Jess said gently, “we’re still going to North Carolina this summer, right? To that place where we can hold a baby tiger?”

  Kate looked at her friend. “Absolutely.”

  *

  Surprisingly, it was almost a comfort to be back in school. News of the accident had gotten around. All of Kate’s teachers expressed concern for J.T.—and for Kate, too, wondering if there was anything they could do to help.

  “It’s really awful about J.T.,” Curtis said, waiting for Kate to come out of Creative Writing.

  “Thanks,” Kate replied.

  “Look, I have to explain something to you,” he said, leaning in toward her as they walked. “Can you meet me after school by the labs?”

  “It needs to be quick,” Kate said. “I have to catch the bus, because I’m not staying for field hockey anymore.”

  “How come?” Curtis asked.

  “I missed a game, so I’m off the team.”

  Curtis kept pace with Kate, but only for a few steps. He didn’t say anything more, and Kate didn’t turn around, but she had the feeling he was watching her as she walked away.

  *

  They met in the usual spot between restrooms on the second floor. Kate hadn’t noticed earlier, but Curtis had a haircut, and his hair wasn’t down in his eyes the way it usually was.

  Because she had all her books for the work she had missed over the past couple days, Kate’s backpack was heavy, and she let it drop to the floor. She stood in front of Curtis and crossed her arms.

  “Okay,” she prompted.

  Curtis fidgeted with his hands. “So anyway, you don’t have to do that last assignment.”

  “No. I wasn’t going to,” Kate said.

  Curtis nodded like he’d expected that response. “Is J.T. going to be okay?”

  She could have said, Why would you care? But she didn’t. She took a deep breath. “He has a long road ahead of him, but he’ll be all right.”

  “Good,” Curtis said. He was nodding again. It must have been a nervous gesture, Kate thought. “Good,” Curtis repeated, “because man, that was pretty awful. When I heard it was a Bush Hog, I didn’t think he’d come through in one piece.”

  “Well, he didn’t really,” Kate said. “His leg will never be the same, because of the muscle he lost.” She uncrossed her arms, but still kept her eyes averted.

  “Gosh, I didn’t mean to say that. What I meant is he’s lucky he’s not dead.”

  Kate nodded, but tears slowly welled up in her eyes after the reminder of what could have happened.

  “Look, I know the feeling,” Curtis said. “When my brother’s tank got hit—over in Afghanistan—I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t even eat.”

  Kate looked up at him. “Is that how he got killed?”

  “No. He got injured in the explosion. A bad head wound, but he lived. He came home then. He got a Purple Heart.”

  “My father has a Purple Heart,” Kate said.

  “What? Your dad was in the service?” Curtis asked.

  “He was in the Gulf War. That’s why he’s buried at Arlington.”

  “Oh. Wow. I didn’t know your dad was gone.”

  “A year ago, just after J.T. got sent away,” Kate said. She frowned a little. “You didn’t know that?”

  Curtis shook his head slowly. “No. I didn’t. How would I know?”

  “Look,” Kate said, “I really have to get going—”

  “Okay,” Curtis replied. He pulled his hands back out of his jeans pockets and opened them, but then he didn’t seem to know what to do with them and hooked his thumbs in his two front pockets. “So I said I’d explain. I just want you to know that it wasn’t me. All those weeks, making you cheat, it wasn’t for me.”

  Curtis looked over her shoulder to peer down the hallway. “Kate, can we just step around the corner?”

  Kate looked down the hallway, too, but there were just a couple kids, walking in the opposite direction. “What are you afraid of?”

  “I’m not afraid of anything. I just don’t want to be seen.”

  “By who?”

  Curtis didn’t answer.

  “Are you afraid Hooper is going to see you here?”

  Curtis hesitated, but then he nodded. “Yeah.”

  “I was cheating for Hooper, wasn’t I?”

  “What? You knew?”

  “I figured it out,” Kate said.

  “He’s got something on me. I’m sorry, Kate. I should never have let this happen.”

  “No. You shouldn’t have! I totally agree!”

  “I am so sorry.”

  “You should be sorry!”

  Curtis dropped his head, and despite all the anger that she had felt in the past, Kate felt flat. Maybe because all the anger that had been building up had been blown away by J.T.’s accident. That, or else maybe she was tired of being angry. At least the bullying was over and she had her apology.

  “So what does Hooper have on you?” Kate asked.

  “He knows stuff.”

  “He knows stuff,” Kate repeated. “Like what?”

  “He knows stuff about my brother. Like if I didn’t make you write those papers he was gonna make a Facebook page and put it out there.”

  Kate narrowed her eyes at Curtis. “Put what out there?”

  “Information about my brother!”

  “Your brother in the army?”

  Curtis pressed his lips together and looked uncomfortable.

  “Yeah,” he finally said. “Hooper was gonna tell the world that my brother didn’t die a hero like everybody in this town thought. You know, they wrote that article about him in the local paper, and there was a scholarship in his name at his high school, from people who donated money.”

  Kate recalled only that Curtis’s brother had visited her fifth-grade classroom. She had never known about the newspaper story or the schola
rship. Things happened to other people, and sometimes you just didn’t know.

  “He didn’t die a hero,” Curtis went on, “because he killed himself.”

  Curtis wiped at his eyes, and Kate could see how much this hurt him to talk about. She wondered what Justin had done to kill himself—and why. She had every reason in the world not to care a whit about Curtis, who had been so mean to her and J.T., but she couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for him, too.

  “Look, I think maybe you’ve built something up in your head,” Kate suggested. “I don’t mean to make it sound like it wasn’t huge, but honestly, Curtis, I don’t think most people around here would make a big deal out of that.”

  Curtis frowned. Like maybe that hadn’t even occurred to him.

  “I mean, your brother didn’t grow up here or go to Corsica High.”

  Suddenly, there was the sound of running footsteps.

  Curtis and Kate both stepped around the corner and saw Hooper smack open the double doors at the far end of the hall and disappear with Kate’s backpack.

  “Stop!” Curtis yelled.

  “Oh, great!” Kate said, holding up her hands. “Now, why did he do that?”

  “Just to be a pain in the butt,” Curtis said. His eyes flashed, and there was a hard, determined set to his jaw. “Don’t worry—go catch your bus. I’ll get it back.”

  When Curtis stomped off after Hooper, Kate glanced at her watch. If she didn’t run, she wouldn’t make it to the bus on time.

  *

  Nervous, Kate chewed on her bottom lip the entire ride home. All her books and assignments were in the backpack. How was she going to get her homework done? Should she call school when she got home and report the theft? If she did, would she mention Hooper’s name? And then would it all come out about the cheating? Did she want that to happen?